empathy

empathy is really the a of the emotional alphabet. empathy is what makes it possible to even make sense of emotions. but that's not how i was taught. i was told that competition and rage were the basis of human interaction and emotion. i was taught to kill or be killed and to never trust anyone, what they said, what they did.

the problem with all that paranoia is that its basic stance, using emotional perceptions to fuel disengagement, alienation and fear, minimizes our abilities to realize our potentials. our conversations, our peculiar reminiscences shared, our ideational harmonies, create the human world. when all our conversations, our reminiscences are discordant, when all we say and think is about the slights and betrayals done to us, the losses we have sustained, the blows to our pride, the gross humiliations... well, the psyche inflames itself and rampages. we see the results all around us and we bemoan it as fate when it is merely bad emotional communication skills. quite simple, really to heal. but there are powerful interests keeping us from experiencing that healing.

question: did your father teach you how to kill?

diana: yes.

question: how did that happen, exactly?

diana: there's no exactly about it. it's like cooking. creating a killer, is creating a dish, you have so many factors, nothing can be exactly one way, the elements determine the procedures just as the procedures alter the elements.

question: was there ever a time when you resisted this training?

diana: i never knew it was training. i thought everyone was like us.

question: what do you mean?

diana: when i was growing up, all the families had sad mothers and overbearing fathers. many of the fathers beat and/or had sexual relations with their children and with other men. some of the fathers sent their wives to get shock therapy. rarely did these men engage in the activity we call making love with their wives. most of the wives died without experiencing passion or even orgasms. the cruelty we lived in was simply the way it was, the water we fish were swimming i - so, rarely were objections voiced or even contemplated.